Solemnly, Min stepped forward with the other two; Aviendha needed the help of two Maidens to walk, though she was able to stand by leaning on Elayne. The Maidens withdrew to leave the three of them alone before the pyre. Elayne and Min stood with her, watching the fire burn, consuming Rand’s corpse.

“I’ve seen this,” Min said. “I knew it would come the day I first met him. We three, together, here.”

Elayne nodded. “So now what?”

“Now…” Aviendha said. “Now we make sure that everyone well and truly believes he is gone.”

Min nodded, feeling the pulsing throb of the bond in the back of her mind. It grew stronger each moment.

Rand al’Thor—just Rand al’Thor—woke in a dark tent by himself. Someone had left a candle burning beside his pallet.

He breathed deeply, stretching. He felt as if he’d just slept long and deep. Shouldn’t he be hurting? Stiff? Aching? He felt none of that.

He reached to his side and felt no wounds there. No wounds. For the first time in a long while, there was no pain. He almost didn’t know what to make of it.

Then he looked down and saw that the hand prodding his side was his own left hand. He laughed, holding it up before him. A mirror, he thought. I need a mirror.

He found one beyond the next partition of the tent. Apparently, he’d been left completely alone. He held up the candle, looking into the small mirror. Moridin’s face looked back at him.

Rand touched his face, feeling it. In his right eye hung a single saa, black, shaped like the dragon’s fang. It didn’t move.

Rand slipped back into the portion of the tent where he’d awakened. Laman’s sword was there, sitting atop a neat pile of mixed clothing. Alivia apparently hadn’t known what he would want to wear. She had been the one to leave these things, of course, along with a bag of coins from a variety of nations. She hadn’t ever cared much for either clothing or coin, but she had known he’d need both.

She will help you die. Rand shook his head, dressing and gathering the coins and the sword, then slipping out of the tent. Someone had left a good horse, a dappled gelding, tied not far away. That would do him well. From Dragon Reborn to horsethief. He chuckled to himself. Bareback would have to do.

He hesitated. Nearby, in the darkness, people were singing. This was Shayol Ghul, but not as he remembered it. A blooming Shayol Ghul, full of life.

The song they sang was a Borderlander

funeral song. Rand led the horse through the night to get a little closer. He peered between the tents to where three women stood around a funeral pyre.

Moridin, he thought. He’s being cremated with full honors as the Dragon Reborn.

Rand backed away, then mounted the dapple. As he did so, he noticed one figure who was not standing by the fire. A solitary figure, who looked toward him when all other eyes were turned away.

Cadsuane. She looked him up and down, eyes reflecting firelight from the glow of Rand’s pyre. Rand nodded, waited for a moment, then turned the horse and heeled it away.

Cadsuane watched him go.

Curious, she thought. Those eyes had confirmed her suspicions. That would be information she could use. No need to keep watching this sham of a funeral, then.

She walked away through the camp, and there strolled directly into an ambush.

“Saerin,” she said as the women fell in around her. “Yukiri, Lyrelle, Rubinde. What is this?”

“We would like direction,” Rubinde said.

“Direction?” Cadsuane snorted. “Ask the new Amyrlin, once you find some poor woman to put into the position.”

The other women continued to walk with her.

As it hit her, Cadsuane stopped in place.

“Oh, blood and ashes, no!” Cadsuane said, spinning on them. “No, no, no.”

The women smiled in an almost predatory way.

“You always talked so wisely to the Dragon Reborn of responsibility,” Yukiri said.

Tags: Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time Fantasy
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